Cæsarean Cycling Club

The weather over the weekend proved to be perfect being warm and sunny the day before allowing team manager Norman Clayton to give his team talk al fresco in the garden of our Brittany based team member, Mike Stevenson.

For the event, the sun had to compete with some cloud cover and this kept the temperature down making conditions ideal for good times - and this proved to be the case.

There were some 5000 competitors in the three events; 55, 100 and 160km. Here, we see the team in the main square in Callac, awaiting the start of the 160km event discussing tactics.

There were so many riders it took us about five minutes to cross the start line. Once clipped in however, the pace soon reached 30mph+ as we descended out of the town.

The pace remained high throughout the first half of the 160km event and coming up to the first feed station at 48 miles, the average speed had been almost 21mph. The team by this time were in two groups, with Colin Perry, Gary de Gruchy, Dave Mayman, Mick Stevenson and Malcolm Armes ahead of Rob York, Trevor Bertram, and Sam and Helen Goulding. Both groups were riding in peletons of about 200 riders so there was no need to go to the front.

The positions were reversed following the feedstation as the second group chose not to stop. The pace slowed during the middle part of the event but the four new leaders now found themselves with Mick Stevenson in a swift group of about 100 riders. At about 80 miles the group caught Malcolm Armes who (unusually) had not been seduced by food on offer at the feedstations. These riders remained together to the final kilometres when a number of short sharp climbs really took it out of your legs. Malcolm Armes managed to stay in the leading part of the peloton while the other three dropped back.

Malcolm was the first to cross the line in an excellent time of about 5 hours, 8 minutes followed a minute later by Mick, Helen and Sam. Helen coming 6th in the ladies 35+ category.